Friday, 16 July 2010

I ended up seeing my Consultant on Wednesday evening by which time I could hardly walk and was in tears because of the the pain (and in truth probably because of the psychological trauma of being so weak and realising things were getting worse).

He looked at my wound and delared it really was an 'awful' infection. He made a couple of minor incisions to be able to probe around and assess the depth of the infection cavities and had me checked back in to hospital. To add insult to injury I had to be wheelchaired back out to the car, despite my protestations that I really would rather shuffle under my own power. They were probably right.

By the time I was in my hosital bed I could hardly keep my eyes open or communicate lucidly. I checked my charts today amd my 'resting' pulse was over 100 and my temperature 102 (sounds better in Fahrenheit, but apparently 104 is when they start to realy worry). So I lay in bed with a fan trained on me and Jane literally mopping my fevered brow (a task she has been doing metaphorically for a long time now).

The night wasn't too bad although my dressings were changed 4 times betwen midnight and 6am. At one point I had three bags attached to various parts of my abdomen. At 2:00 am my nurse called in reinforcements and a nurse stood on either side of me as they removed all dressings and my stoma bag to get a fresh start. Of course, once all the dressing were off I started erupting from all three wound holes and my stoma simultaneously and the nurses were frantically swabbing and wiping to try and get me clean enough to redress everything. It was one of those moments when you really do have to be able to laugh and thankfully we all managed to see the funny side.

CT scans yesteday were good news -- it appears there are no other infection pockets so what we can see is what we have to deal with (otherwise they may have had to open me up again). So now its iv antibiotics and fluids (I had not been able to eat or drink sufficiently on Wednesday as I felt so nauseous) painkillers and plenty of rest. A minimum five days in hopsital now to get the iv antibiotics course run.

So here we go again: yesterday evening I got out of bed here for the first time to get to the bathroom and I was as weak and unstable as new-born foal. So the next challenge is a corridor walk; hopefully today.

1 comment:

Great to hear that things are looking up. Although things have been pretty grim you have managed to make me laugh. Poor Jane! Don't use the protocolectomy joke in the office as I so know where it has come from.